Blog

The result of the recent snap election called by Shinzo Abe and Japan’s steady military build-up are a portent of things to come. The Korean crisis, which owes at least as much to Washington’s flexing of military muscle as to Pyongyang’s misguided nuclear antics, holds the key to many of these ominous developments. (more…)

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Pauline Hanson has been a magnet for the media and for academic analysts since she burst on the scene in 1996 as the federal member for Oxley and her party won eleven seats and potentially the balance of power at the 1998 state election.  Now, like the legendary phoenix, she seems to have suddenly risen from the ashes. (more…)

By 2020, North Korea will either be a post-atomic wasteland; an active war zone; or a de facto nuclear-armed state with a fully developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, and grudgingly accepted as such. To paraphrase Churchill’s familiar bon mot on democracy, learning to live with that reality would be the worst outcome, except for all the alternatives. (more…)

Police raids on political parties or associated institutions at any time should raise concerns – and the hackles – among democratically minded citizens. The recent raids on AWU offices in Sydney and Melbourne, seemingly in search for “dirt” on Bill Shorten’s time as head of the Union, should be ringing alarm bells. Are the police acting independently, as our weak Prime Minister claims? Is this an attempt to silence one of the country’s most effective political advocacy groups – to wit, GetUp!? Are the federal police seeking to curry favour with an incumbent government by going after the Leader of the Opposition? Is it all of the above? Or is it simply Canberra’s latest bureaucratic SNAFU?   (more…)

The suite of codes, statements and laws governing lobbying are failing Australian voters. Yet, for decades, the two major parties have been unwilling to meaningfully improve them. But, having recognised the seriousness of the problems with lobbying and corruption in Australia, the Senate crossbenchers – along with lower house independents – have finally begun the process of deciding how lobbying reform should occur. Into this space, the Jacqui Lambie Network has released a policy that has become the starting point for negotiations on one of Australia’s most important policy challenges.  (more…)

Pearls and Irritations has printed memoirs of mine to mark the 50th anniversary of two notable news assignments: one was the Six-Day War, the other was a trip across the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. This one marks the 40th anniversary of my first trip to China – to Peking, as Beijing was still known in 1977. It was a couple of years before the great transformation into modern China began.  (more…)

Many of my friends and colleagues have remarked on how my new role as inaugural CEO of the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) is a natural extension of the work I’ve been doing promoting the need for #BetterBroadband. Connectivity is the cornerstone of Smart Communities. Innovation cannot occur without it, and innovation is key to creating more intelligent cities and enriching their communities.  (more…)

Saudi Arabia’s increased influence in Muslim-majority countries will have wider ramifications for ASEAN. (more…)

It has taken four years for the government and the nbn company to finally admit what many people have been warning for since the very beginning of the change in NBN plans from FttH (fibre to the home) to FttN (fibre to the node). (more…)

“That stupid woman!” my wife exclaimed, looking out through the front window of our house onto the street below.  We were listening to the news, and at first I thought my beloved was referring to some blunder by Julie Bishop or Theresa May.  But the object of her scorn was a woman wheeling a baby in a pram down the centre of the street and studying her mobile phone while cars edged past on either side.  (more…)